The Big Pink || Future This

The Big Pink
Future This
Label: 4AD Records
Released on: January 16th, 2012
Grade: 5.5 out of 5 meatballs
Reviewed by: Neil Miller, Jr.

This is an album I feel like I’ve waited eons for. After the instantly enrapturing Brief History of Love album, I thought it would be impossible for The Big Pink to top themselves. Then I saw them live at the Metro and witnessed a whole other dimension to this spectacular assembly of talent. It was then that they became one of my favorite bands of all time, and my hopes for their future output grew a thousand fold. So, now that I’ve been soaking up their new album, Future This, for the past month or so, I’m ready to tell you exactly how I feel about it. If you can’t tell from the outrageous rating I gave this record, I absolutely am head over heels in love with it — and I’ll tell you why.

Before the dawn of 2012 even hit, I was already of the mindset that Future This is one of my favorite albums of the new year. The sonic blueprint The Big Pink laid out on their last record is expanded upon in spades. For those who found the duo through “Dominos,” there are hooks aplenty on this record for you — album opener “Stay Gold” is all the evidence you’ll need of that. But for those of us who grew to love these guys because of their knack for layering sheets of sound upon each other, somehow forming something beautiful and cohesive all the while, there are enough production advances on this album to have us hearing new things in each song for the next year. My personal favorite in this respect is “The Palace,” which builds upon a skittering beat, heavenly synths, organ stabs, and a chorus that is so sing-along, you’ll be digging for a lighter to hold up. 

The Big Pink have clearly come full-circle with their sound since the last album. You’d think it’d be impossible to please fans of their poppier moments while also keeping the listeners with keen ears reeled in through further aural architecture, but every song on Future This builds up the momentum of the album more and more to the point where instant replays are imminent. Where A Brief History of Love had a few moments I could’ve done without (I never was a fan of “Golden Pendulum”), this record is consistently stellar. The Depeche Mode-ian riffs and pound of “Jump Music,” the downtrodden and minimalistic eeriness of the album closer “77,” and the instantaneously infectious build-up of “Hit the Ground (Superman)” all manage to make sense together and contribute to making this their shining moment. Not to mention that the album’s title track is, in my opinion, their best work yet. It’s one of those songs that makes you realize why these guys are signed to 4AD. It would sound just as home in a Gregg Araki film as it would being mentioned in a Dennis Cooper book — it’s dark, it’s heavy on the atmosphere, and it defines a mood that can only be described as hopelessly uplifting. 

There are certain albums that deserve to be heard, ones that make life feel that much better — and Future This is just that. If I can persuade you to listen to and buy one record this year, it would undoubtedly be this one. It’s one of those records that reminds me why I wanted to write about music in the first place. It’ll make you think and it’ll make you cry just as much as it’ll make you smile, but that’s the point of music — to make you feel something, if only for a moment. The Big Pink makes precisely that kind of music, and this album cements that reputation in stone. Where they could possibly go from here is unbeknownst to me, but I know that after this, I’ll be following them every step of the way.